Archive for October, 2010

Not only did this small race have great prizes, but I got some ok photos out of the deal.  Nothing fabulous, but way better than my usual suckfest.

This is in the first section of the race when I started passing people like these 3 dudes. I'm doing something turtle-ish with my neck which is annoying but I've certainly taken worse. Lol.

The clock is totally wrong due to the short course, but note the main feature: Upright & Vertical (which is redundant, but screw it)

Prizes!

Checking out the medal. Happy.

If you follow me on Facebook or the 3:20 RW thread, you know the scoop already but here’s how it went down…

This morning, while dressing, there was one thought in my mind: how is this going to feel?  I had mentioned the pacing plan was to go 6:50s but yesterday during my run, I had doubts.  I ran to the race site since we had major river flooding and I wanted to check that it was going to be clear.

That portion of the river isn’t like the usual flat riverside course on which so many of our local races are run.  This one is an out-and-back with some hilliness in the middle of each way, so as I traveled it, I was thinking “Dang, 6:50s would have been easy enough on the flat but this isn’t flat.  It’ll probably feel as crummy as a regular 5K.  Oh well, Upright and Vertical, that’s the only goal.”

The Race
I line up a couple rows behind where I’d ordinarily start.  The gun goes off and I obey the law, the first mile is 6:54ish.

I was a little weirded out by the number of people who passed me at the start.  Seemed like they were swarming from behind, but I stuck to my guns.  Besides sticking to my pace plan, I was also aware that the uphill starts about .5mi in, then a steep little section after that, so going faster was not even a minor temptation.  I knew a lot of that swarm would slow down soon enough.

Around 1mi I see a woman who looks to be in my AG (10-year groupings) so I work on moving up, but slowly.  It was cool to have confidence in my ability to pick her off.  Around 1.5mi, I’m next to her, but she’s not having any of it and vies against me.  I feel a little mean because I can tell by her effort that she’s working to do it.  I’m not in la-la land at this point, btw, I am working, but definitely not as hard as a usual 5K.  I finally say “screw it”, gather speed and move ahead.

I passed a lot of people and don’t recall anyone passing me after the initial surge.  I wasn’t even looking at my Garmin after the initial bit where I stabilized my pace – this race was that much of a “run by feel” type deal.  Such a weight off to ignore PRs and goal times!

At the turnaround, which was a bit of a mess because they routed it through this very public area (Lloyd Hall for the locals) this other girl comes out of nowhere and is in front of me.  I get a little pissed off thinking she’s cheating, so I decided that I will beat her ass even if she is younger than me.  That gave me a boost of energy.

I pass her as we deal with the last little hill and then it’s downhill to flat from there, about a mile. Garmin says the 2nd mile was 6:52 but the third was 6:27 pace.  It felt like I was racing at that point but not wheezing or anything (55 degrees sure helped).   About .5 to the end, someone on the side yells “3rd woman!” to me and I yell back, “Cool!”.  I totally did not expect that.

Short Course
As I approach the clock, I see the last digits, 40, 41, etc. and think how excellent, I can beat 21, but then I see the first digits “19″ and I immediately know it’s a short course…I may have done well, but definitely not that well.  I finished with a clock time of 19:57ish (have to check results), under 20 anyway.

I walk around and ask a couple fasties if they think it was a short course and they agree that yeah, it was.  Later, we’re told it was .1 of a mile off, so this will forever be an asterisk race. No problem, I wasn’t looking for a good time, I was looking for Upright and Vertical and I got it.

Results
3rd O.A female.  Adding in the .1mi gives me 20:36 for a finish time.  Fabulous!  So close to my PR and with hills and going slow the first 2/3s and I didn’t feel like utter ass at the end, plus I have a wicked head cold and am a total snotface (I ran with a handkerchief tucked in my shorts) so triple Woohoo!!!

To top it all off, this sweet little race has the absolute best prizes.  Not only did I get a $25 gift certificate to Whole Foods, which is fab since it’s my neighborhood grocery store, but in a fine stroke of fate, I also got a $75 gift certificate for Zipcars!  How wild is that?  I just got my paperwork for Zipcars on Thursday!  Crazy.  Meant To Be, even.

So this was a wonderful experience in about 5 different ways and I jogged home with the most huge smile on my face.  “Look at me, Look at me…I can race like normal people!”

Or rather, I will enjoy a hard training run within a racing environment…

For the past few days, I’ve been mulling over doing a 5K this weekend.  I had planned to race this weekend anyway, but the Half debacle complicated my plans.  While part of me was dreading the idea of racing again (the memory of discomfort is very bright still), another part is anxious to get back on the horse; these months-long stretches between races is not good for the psyche, much less when the last race memory is pure suckage.

What clinched the deal is that the weather is finally going to drop tonight, race start will be low 50′s, temps I haven’t experienced since April.  How wonderful it will be to remove the heat & humidity factor entirely from the picture.

Conferring with Coach A muse/Adam, we agreed that goal time is inconsequential.  Instead, my primary goal is to finish without a bizarre ending with an ancillary goal to feel good and run strong.  With this in mind, he gave me a great pace to target, 6:50s.

I know it will be slightly annoying to see my age group cohorts speed ahead of me, plus this race has real prizes which is a rarity around here (at least it did in 2007), but finishing upright would be worth its weight in gold.

I wasn’t going to mention that I’m doing it, btw, just say so afterwards, but I’m such an ass that if I’m going to run 6:50s, I want you to know ahead of time so it doesn’t look like I ran a shitty race and pretended after the fact “Oh yeah, I was planning on crap pacing from the get-go”.  Now you know I really am.  And because I went to the trouble to explain this, I’ll probably finish with 7:00′s.

In other news, my first medical test is this Monday, the breathing one, so that should be interesting.  And, to get to the appointment, I’ll be using a Zipcar for the first time.  It’s a Honda Civic and it has a name, “Calrissian”…I don’t know what its momma was thinking.

I’ll leave you with a couple shoutouts.  First, to my marathoning girlfriends who are running St. George and Wineglass this weekend.  Have a GREAT race and run like the wind, baby dolls.  To my sweet friends tapering for Chicago, I’m sending buckets of calming vibes your way.  As for the rest of youse guys, have a great weekend, whatever you have planned.  Love to all!